Since Elon Musk took over Twitter in late 2022, the company has undergone several changes not just in management but also in its social media platforms too has undergone an overhaul in terms of the new Blue subscription that offers the coveted blue verification tick mark for a premium. It was previously limited to high-profile persons.
In recent weeks, Twitter has seen several bugs including the repetition of tweets while scrolling, ruining user experience, and the controversial removal of two-factor authentication using SMS has angered users a lot. While Musk is trying hard to reboot Twitter with depleted staff, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) is silently working on a competitor under the project codenamed 'P92'.
It is said to be a standalone text-based Instagram-branded content app that will work on decentralised social networking protocol ActivityPub, which by the way is also used to run Mastodon and other federated apps, reported Money Control, citing company insiders.
Meta's internal product brief available with MC says besides texting, the new platform will have several Twitter-like features including the ability to share tappable links in posts with previews, reshare (like retweet), images, and videos, offer space to show user's short bio, username handle, and verification badges (not sure it will have checkmarks).
And, users will be able to access the new product with- User ID and password-- credentials of the Instagram account.
Meta in a press note to media has confirmed it is working on the new social network but doesn't reveal much on features.
"We're exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there's an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests," Meta spokesperson said.
Another notable aspect of Meta's app is that it can work on a decentralized network, meaning an individual with their own server can set their own rules to moderate content and no particular person or organisation can have full control over the platform. And, the app can also be interoperable on Mastodon or any similar apps that run on ActivityPub protocol. It will be similar to how Instagram users can operate on Facebook and Messenger apps with ease.
There is a plan to offer initial access to select people on Instagram with the company's existing terms and conditions of the privacy policy. Certain usage data may be collected to improve user experience.
However, there are no definite details on what stage the product development is at and when it may be rolled out to the public.
Besides Mastadon, Gettr, Truth Social, and Meta's Instagram, Bengaluru-based Koo is also vying to get a big share of userbase migrating from Twitter and actually doing better than all other competitors.
Currently, Koo is the second biggest micro-blogging platform compared to Twitter (450 million active userbase). Since its launch in March 2020, it has garnered 50 million app downloads (including Android and iOS).
Koo is available in 10 languages and has users from 100+ countries, including India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Canada, Nigeria, UAE, Algeria, Nepal, and Iran.
Whereas Mastodon, which saw a surge in userbase to reach the 2.5 million mark in December 2022, is now come down to 1.5 million. As per Statistica, Truth Social had just over 65,380 active user base at the end of December 2022.
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